Poland — a country of packed churches; a country where millions enthusiastically
welcome the Pope; a country with a ban on virtually all
abortions and with restrictions on prenatal tests; a country in which the Church
claims the right to be involved in legislative processes about laws concerning
neither the Church nor religion; a country in which the Church would like to
tell scientists what should and what should not be a subject of their research;
where the Church was prepared to set Poland at variance with the EU in order to
get God's name into the European constitution.

In this country we are trying to promote rational thinking — RACJONALISTA.pl is
currently the biggest center for publicizing free-thinkers and rationalists in
Poland. More and more experts from different fields are contributing to our
website. Since the website was established seven years ago about 1100 authors -
both Polish and foreign — have published with us. Currently we hold about 5800
articles and we have about 15 thousand visitors every day.

Adhering to the tradition
of Enlightenment, we advocate scientific reliability and scientific methods of
research and thinking. We hunt out prejudices, quackery, lies and phobias which
are present in almost every walk of life and are often propagated in the mass
media as well as in schools and in churches of all denominations.

RACJONALISTA. pl publishes
articles and essays from all important fields of human knowledge. Our aim is to
have on the Polish Internet a systematic compendium of knowledge devised by
rationalists. At present we mostly stress the study of religions, church history,
philosophy, civic education, science, history and ethics.

The
teaching of the Catholic religion in all schools (and even in kindergartens) is
paid for from the state budget. We, of course, do not get any subsidies from
anybody; nevertheless, for young people we are a sort of antidote. The rising
popularity of RACJONALISTA shows that there is a demand in Poland for rational
thinking in spite of the expansion of the Church and of growing clericalism,
intolerance and parochialism.

In January 2005 people
connected with RACJONALISTA created the Polish Association of Rationalists based
in Wroclaw. We are now trying to organise an
association of people convinced of the need for joint action in order to promote
the growth of individuals and society along rational lines.

PSR: Ideological declaration

Convinced about
the need of coordinated activity aimed at individual and society's
development according to the idea of rationalism forming the foundations
and philosophy of life enabling a man to study the world and understand it more
and more thoroughly, as well as influence it by critical discourse based on
rational and naturalistic arguments constantly subjected to analysis, and the
process of developing and specifying of all the non-dogmatic methods of studying
and understanding;

Basing on the
ethical directions flowing from the affirmation of man and his creative output,
which is the source of culture's most significant values;

Drawing inspiration from the bright
pages especially of our continent's history — and from those pages' most
illustrious authors;

Hoping
to overcome — or at least weaken — human superstitions, harmful mystifications,
xenophobia, ignorance, incapacitation of mind, domination of irrational factors
in thinking and action, supremacy of stereotypes over open-minded and thorough
thinking and purposeful, efficient action — in order to rise over divisions,
quarrels and low ambitions in common construction of a better society, Europe
and the world;

Convinced
that a man can work over himself to overcome his own weaknesses, his
imperfections and defects, in order to change for the better; therefore placing
the trust in ourselves, in our courage, will and strength, in a man as the only
originator of good and evil surrounding us, solely in his activity finding the
potential to solve the modern world's most pressing problems and challenges;

Opposing
the omnipresent culture of vagueness, shallow hedonism, minimalization and
unification of spiritual and cultural needs, and purposeless existence;

Interested
in promoting inner growth and self-perfection of an individual, who strives for
self-fulfillment by the cultivation of life that is ethical, creative and
socially and intellectually active;

Emphasizing
in particular civilization-enhancing, philosophical and social value of modern
Science, based upon the foundations of the European rationalism;

Appreciating
human imagination, creativity — and by that — spiritual significance of Art
and the humanities;

Demanding
more light dissipating our reality's dark aspects, and an in-depth
transformation of the elite for the revival of
Polish sense of citizenship;

Caring
deeply for democracy which — without cultivation of rational discourse,
knowledge and open-mindedness — serves no purpose whatsoever and remains just
an empty catchword;

Aiming
to consolidate free and intellectually ambitious people open to knowledge and
its progress;

The Purposes of the Polish Association of Rationalists

Polskie Stowarzyszenie Racjonalistów (abbreviation: PSR) /The Polish Association of
Rationalists/ is a union
operating on the basis of the act of 7.4.1989 — the Unions Act and the resolutions of the
Memorandum of 24.4.2005, of an ideological, ethical, philosophical and scientific
nature of the Polish rationalists who aim to realize the following purposes:

1)
to unite and integrate the Polish society with rationalistic views into
an association which is able to act for the cause of social dissemination and
consolidation of independent,
critical thinking, rational and scientific study and explaining of the
surrounding world;

2)
to develop and propagate the philosophy of life based on the scientific
knowledge, reason, experience and secular ethics;

3)
to develop tolerant attitudes, fight against biases and support the idea of
open-minded society;

4)
to oppose the spreading of harmful stereotypes that result in limiting the
individual development of man and to act for the benefit of individual's
freedom in the boundaries of the operating law;

5)
to popularize science and the scientific method; to defend science against the
modern attempts to discredit and deform it; to propagate the social meaning of
science and to act for the cause of its rehabilitation as a public priority;

6)
to act for the benefit of society of knowledge (information);

7)
to act for the cause of eliminating the influence of irrational ideologies on
state legislation, science's development, artistic activity and general
mentality;

8)
to act for the cause of separating churches and religious associations from the
State, as well as fight for this State's ideological neutrality;

9)
to defend the Association's members' interests — to the best of our
ability -against ideological,
political and social pressures limiting free thinking, acting, the development
of science, culture, art; to support and defend the rights of discriminated
people's rights, directly and indirectly, especially over their ideology,
sexual orientation, nationality, race, ethnic origins,
and sex, as well as provide help in those rights' realization;

10)
to propagate creative, active attitude, social and civil committal; to
work for the benefit of development and realization of interests, knowledge and
of widening mental horizons of its members.

The Association realizes its
purposes through:

1)
popularization of knowledge;
shaping social and community ethics of its members